 Next question is from Fawzi Am, is there a way to grow shoulders and back without the traps getting too big? Do deadlifts make traps bigger? You know, okay, let's talk about deadlifts first Deadlifts build the entire back most of the trap development though You'll get from deadlifts is not the upper so I'm assuming this person's afraid of developing upper traps like the Because your traps have different attachments and the muscle fibers point in different directions no neck look Yeah, so you could develop the upper traps which actually shrug the shoulders You're getting probably the holding process. Yeah, but when you deadlift a lot of the developments in that mid-trap area You know, that's where you're gonna see most of the development. So can they build the upper traps? I guess if you have really good genetics for traps and Maybe but it's more of that mid kind of trap area that you'll see near the rhomboids. These are annoying questions to me This is definitely annoying but to me this is actually I picked it a lot of women say ask this question Well, yeah, it does and it's very it's very bodybuilder-esque and here's another example of like because I know for a long time We tend to pick on machines a lot But here's where sometimes using machines have their value when I'm trying to isolate a part of the shoulder or take out Something the traps are a stabilizer muscle shoulder So there's no way around it not working But I'll tell you doing something slow control and like with isometric contractions, right? And with a light weight is less likely to develop the traps than something that is done with like speed or power or Like heavy heavy loaded you're gonna do something like that Those those traps are gonna have to stabilize that heavy heavy load Especially on free weights compared to maybe doing something like a reverse fly on a cable machine or a you know A shoulder press on a machine like there's certain ways that you could do You know, it's funny people are like oh overhead presses will develop the traps like crazy I've seen more trap Activation in laterals from people who do them wrong sure then overhead pressure Laterals first off if you do them right you you don't really the traps stabilize a little bit, but it's all delts But you see people do laterals heavy laterals are definitely, you know, it's funny See what I was working out with Justin him and I were doing laterals at the same time He was doing upper back trap laterals. I was doing side dealt lateral bodybuilder versus obviously athlete, right? It's very different. It was I was noticing that too. I'm doing these totally different. Yeah One is it wrong or the other they're very they're just different, right? But if you want just shoulder development, it's your keep your shoulders kind of depressed lean forward a little bit It's all you know here with the with the hand facing down You want more trap development. It's gonna be a little bit more movement a little bit more external rotation Squeezing the upper back a little bit So laterals in my opinion are more responsible for this than anything else because a lot of people will do Laterals the way you do Justin because it allows you to move more weight. They're not necessarily athletes They want to develop the shoulders like why don't I just like boil down to more focus on mind muscle connection Yes, yeah And so if you just want to if this is a serious goal of yours is to really just hyper connect to You know deltoids and really just make sure that you do it very slow control Yes, and with lighter weight that's like the shoulder. That's my point of the machines, right? So if you're if you I ideally you have the ability Right, you've worked you've worked on the mind muscle connection that you can use free weights It's still be able to do like what's out the point Sal's making right now But a good like way to regress that to kind of get that place is to use machines to kind of help Until you get really good at knowing how to like isolate parts of them Even though it's impossible to completely isolate a part of a muscle you can do you definitely can do can redirects You have more force you can definitely do a shoulder press or a lateral raise or a rear fly with very little trap involvement Or a lot of trap involvement and and what really makes a difference is your ability to connect to what part of the shoulder You're really targeting and think about that as you're moving through it and avoid the you know Erratic heavy kind of like movement during a specific movement. You're trying to target apart. I mean rose like if you don't shrug Your shoulders you depress the scapula bring them down and back You're not going to use tons of upper trap muscles if you shrug their shoulders while you row which some people do Then you're getting a more trap development obviously pull-ups pull-downs almost no upper trap Activation because the weight's coming down, but I don't think you should just stick to that I've had female clients or trainers even say all I do are pull-downs for my back to avoid building my upper traps And they end up developing really bad forward shoulder because they don't strengthen those mid-back muscles very well And they end up with this not good look anyway So I mean avoid shrugging avoid explosive avoid explosive movements and and train your shoulders and back like a bodybuilder Yeah, where it's mind the muscle don't train like an athlete because if you do explosive athletic type movements You're gonna involve the traps quite a bit. This is why it's some athletes is that you football players I don't think they ever do shrugs, but you see lots of cleans and explosive movements They got incredible, you know trap development Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here Or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe